Blind Spots
A garden ripens under your skin. Begonias shrieking
red, cut to bloom. I think it’s too early for these things.
I hope the gardener forgets his hat at home. I hope there is
soft rain, enough to lose trust in the weather forecast,
& then only drought, parched tongues, the pulsing ache of stars
when there is no one to keep watch. I give you
marigolds & a sprig of myrtle. Stigma
& stamen. You unfurl petal by petal: your hands
thorns, your mouth thorns, your body a soft bed
of moss. Has the rain always felt so sharp?
How long have we been poking ourselves raw
with our own skin? Look. There is room
for the terrible rooftop and its assembly of chattering men.
There is room for our two bodies: locked in
eternal summer, our mouths bright as begonias, bright
as feverish crowd & heat stroke. The reddest red as a shade
of blinding, brutal in its whiteness. Our bones pale enough to pass
away. Look up. You are still here. The stars are watching, patient,
& the gardener is waiting at the door & you are still
here & who could mistake the light, dappled in dark spots,
for noise, for open window? Who could mistake the light
for anything but ourselves?
Analytic Component:
“Blind Spots” is a poem largely inspired by nature, written in the voice of Passing’s protagonist Irene Redfield. In the poem, I wanted to reimagine the multi-faceted relationship between Irene and Clare in terms of nature, ultimately exploring the consequences of race, gender, and where they meet in the text.
From the beginning of the text, Clare is described in relation to nature, her “wide mouth like a scarlet flower against the ivory of her skin” (Larsen 6). Considering author Nella Larsen’s role in the literary development of the Harlem Renaissance, I wanted to link her work to another favorite poet of mine and contemporary of hers: Anne Spencer, whose work focused largely on nature. As a result, I wanted to amplify the role of nature in the text to represent Irene and Clare’s relationship: for instance, referencing “[s]tigma & stamen,” both parts of flowers, to relate the social stigma behind passing to the naturalistic stigma, a part of female flower anatomy. Moreover, in the language of flowers, marigolds are often used to represent both warmth and jealousy (Irene’s conflicting feelings toward Clare’s passing); begonias represent both gratitude and caution (Clare’s role in uprooting Irene’s life); and myrtle flowers have been used to represent marital luck and love (both Clare’s and Irene’s troubles within their marriages).
In the text, Irene notes that she herself “[is] an American. She grew from this soil, and she would not be uprooted. Not because of Clare Kendry, or a hundred Clare Kendrys. Brian, too, belonged here. His duty was to her and to his boys” (Larsen 201). In the novel, the weather acts as an unrelenting, universal force that largely disrupts Irene’s desire for order by threatening to destroy her place within society, especially in relation to Clare, whom Irene harbors complicated feelings towards. Irene claims that she will not be “uprooted”; this evokes an image of Irene as a sturdy tree, one that is firmly planted to the ground. Likewise, her roots can be translated into her obsession with stability and permanence. Unlike Irene, Clare is like moss, rootless and relentless—the threat of impermanence personified. Clare acts much like nature: a force with the power to distort Irene’s sense of race, family, place, and self. As a result, the role of nature in the novel is intimately tied to Clare herself, as both force Irene to come to terms with her ambivalent attitude toward race, where she might have otherwise ignored them to maintain the conventions of gender and class: “How long have we been poking ourselves raw / with our own skin?” Irene’s feelings toward passing are reimagined in the context of her first encounter with Clare after their respective girlhoods: “The reddest red as a shade / of blinding, brutal in its whiteness. Our bones pale enough to pass / away.” The final stanza calls back to the novel’s ending: the scene with the open window. Clare is alive one moment and gone the next; in the poem, however, the shadows behind the light are still beautiful and Clare is “still here.” In this ending, nature envelops Irene and Clare, who accept the accompanying instability and impermanence for a chance to be together, to be alive: “Who could mistake the light / for anything but ourselves?”